


Nothing Without You

by davecabbage



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: A teeny tiny bit of fluff, Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Injury, Minor Plot Spoilers, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davecabbage/pseuds/davecabbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MacCready had made a vow to stick by her side until the day that he died but he never stopped to consider that it might end up the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Without You

**Author's Note:**

> A little something different from me (if you've ever read any of my other stuff that is) after I fell hard into the Fallout fandom again because goddamnit that dorky as hell mercenary with the sad backstory took me by surprise and now I'm in deep. 
> 
> Spoilers for MacCready's storyline. 
> 
> This fic is the result of me thinking about how MacCready would probably lose his shit at the thought of something ever happening to the Sole Survivor. And of course he still swears like little Mayor Shitbag MacCready in his head. 
> 
> Unbeta'ed because my usual beta hasn't played Fallout 4 yet and I didn't want to force any spoilers on her.

All it took was a little cut.

The Boss had survived broken bones, bullet holes and stab wounds in their travels throughout the Commonwealth. Hell, on one occasion she had gone one on one against a deathclaw in the cramped spaces of an abandoned museum and lived to tell the tale – bragged about it even. The beast had grown in size every time the story had been told over free flowing whisky. On one occasion she had taken the brute down, armed only with a modded to hell power fist and a frag grenade. No matter how the story was told, one thing that irked MacCready was that she had done it alone. He should have been there with her, or if not him them _someone_. It didn’t matter that she made it out relatively unscathed; it had become painstakingly clear to him that a person’s odds of survival out in the wasteland were a hell of a lot better in the company of someone they could trust to have their back. It took him a long time to remember that, and it was her who had reminded him of it.

He had been pissed at her for days when she sauntered back into Sanctuary and shared the story with him and Garvey over some radstag stew as if it was nothing. MacCready had almost choked on his meal when she talked about just waltzing into a goddamn deathclaw nest and dropping off the stolen egg as if she was a courier on a routine job.

MacCready and the Boss had been through hell and back over and over again with more close calls than either of them would care to admit, but they’d both always walked – or in some instances crawled – away alive. Battered, bruised and a little worse for wear, but alive. The one thing that had kept him alive, and sane, was her. And he had thought he was doing his fair share to keep her breathing too. From the perfect vantage points MacCready kept hostiles off her back with his trusty rifle while she delivered swift and brutal blows up close. It was a pretty sweet arrangement they had made for themselves and just six months ago if anyone had told him that he would be running around with someone who he trusted with his life with no intentions of ever ending that arrangement, he would have laughed in their face.  

And yet out in there a person’s intentions didn’t mean shit. The wasteland was a cruel bitch who showed no mercy to the poor bastards that were forced to live there, and if she wanted to take something away from you then she fucking would and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. No matter how hard they fought.

It was just a tiny nick really. Barely even a graze, but that was all it took.

The two of them had just fought a brutal and bloody battle after a group of super mutants had ambushed them. It should have been an easy kill; there were only 4 of them, but then a horde of the fuckers came out of nowhere in the middle of the firefight. As always, the two of them were the last ones standing. Barely, but still standing.

Overall their injuries in the end weren’t even that bad. If you didn’t count almost dying on one or two occasions in the middle of it, but that’s what stimpacks were for, right? MacCready had a really close call, but in the end him and the Boss made it out alive, like they always did.

But that didn’t mean they always would.

It was all his goddamn fault. If she had been with anyone else… shit, he still couldn’t live with it but at least he would have had someone to blame, but this happened on _his_ watch. He could hardly call himself a mercenary when his employer had got themselves killed under his watch. It was why he was being paid after all. Not that he was actually being paid anymore – not in the original arrangement that they had made at least. Sure, she still split their payment for jobs as well as the loot they scavenged with him, but it had stopped being about the caps for him a long time ago.

MacCready had even gone as far as giving those two hundred caps – the fee that had brought them together in the first place, and he still can’t believe she swindled him out of those extra fifty – back. Of course she had flat out refused them at first because that was just the type of goddamn do-gooding person she was. She might shake people for every last cap before agreeing to take on a job and never hesitated in blowing a Raider’s brains out, but she was still the benevolent general who the Minutemen worshipped as their new leader. The saviour who stuck her neck out for every last damn settlement in the Commonwealth without expecting anything in return except their loyalty and didn’t even begrudge the ungrateful bastards that didn’t sign up or offer so much as a ‘thanks’.

MacCready didn’t know exactly when things had started to change between them. All he knew was that he had started to open up to her more and more the longer they travelled together out in the godforsaken Commonwealth. Maybe it was because she was the first person to come along who seemed to actually give a damn about him. The Boss didn’t have to risk her neck to take out Winlock and Barnes – that had never been in their original agreement – but she did it because it was for him. People don’t stick their neck out for anyone all that much in this world; everyone looked out for themselves and to hell with anyone who wasn’t strong enough to hold their own. It was kill or be killed; survival of the fittest. MacCready has been on his own for so long he had almost forgotten what it was like to be wanted for himself and not for his skills.

Not since Lucy.

People died in the wasteland every day. It was a fact of their fucked up existence ever since the world had gone to shit over two hundred years ago. It was the life MacCready had been born into and it was all he ever had, or ever would know. Death had been with him from the beginning. Kids from Little Lamplight got themselves killed being idiots; some were lost to slavers and were as good as dead or would have been better off six feet under anyway; others just didn’t make it due to sickness and lack of supplies in their shitty lives. And it was just little things that he had learned from the Boss that were easily treatable back in her day.

MacCready was tough. He had to be in this fucked up world or it would have eaten him alive years ago. He was a survivor and had hardened himself to the loss around him everyday. It was essential. At least he had until Lucy, and Duncan. Being mayor of Little Lamplight had made him responsible for the lives of a lot of kids and yeah their losses had stung like a bitch, but he had never experienced that soul tearing pain of true grief until the day he watched his wife get torn apart right in front of him by a pack of fucking feral ghouls.

And then he had almost lost his son too. After that night when he had barely made it out of that metro station with Duncan clutched close to his chest, he had vowed to keep him safe no matter what the cost, even if it meant throwing his own life away to do it. For a while he had managed to do just that too. He had always been good with a gun and the wasteland had provided more than enough practice for him to get better and better at it. Best damn shot around; it was probably why the Gunners had welcomed him with open arms. But a mysterious disease that showed up out of nowhere? How the fuck was he supposed to fight that? Give him a Raider or even a goddamn feral and he’d blow their fucking heads off without breaking a sweat, but he was no doctor. That had been Lucy’s calling, not his. MacCready had only ever been good at killing things, not saving them. He’d defended Little Lamplight with a gun strapped to his back. The fact that he had had any part in creating a life still amazed him. A fucking screw up like him was capable of doing some good. Duncan was living, breathing proof of that.

Except that he had almost fucked that up too. Without the Boss he probably never would have made it to the cure in time. Worse yet, he might’ve got himself killed down in the basement of Med-Tek by those fucking ferals, just like Lucy, and his son would have been all alone, miles away, to die without either of his parents left to say goodbye.

Maybe it was fate, or luck, or whatever bullshit you wanted to call it, but his life had changed that day she had walked into The Third Rail and handed over those caps.

Another vow MacCready had made to himself was to never get too close to anyone ever again, besides Duncan. He couldn’t take that loss again. If he… if he had lost Duncan then he was as good as dead without him. Let the fucking Gunners make good on their promise to end him. But he didn’t, and somehow she had got him breaking that vow without him even realising it. In the end he had found himself making a new vow of sticking by her side until the day that he died. At the time he had never stopped to consider that it might be the other way around.

She had taken a hit, more of a hard brush really, from a mutie wielding a board with a whole bunch of nails sticking out of it. Using those nimble legs of hers, that MacCready had spent more than his fair share of time admiring when he should have been keeping his eyes peeled for hostiles, she had dodged it but the fucker still managed to catch her arm. It grazed her, but the strength behind that big bastard still knocked her back on her ass. Although she was back up on her feet and emptying a clip into its tiny little brains before it could move in for another go at her.

When it was all over they got their priorities in order: loot the bastards for anything of value and then check themselves over for injuries before heading off. The important stuff. It was while she was pulling a nice, ample supply of shells from the corpse of one of the mutant bastards that MacCready spotted it.

“You’re bleeding.” He motioned towards her arm where he noted a tear in her vault suit that had left a small but growing red stain.

She pocketed the shells and looked down at it for a moment. “It’s just a scratch.”

“Just let me take a look at it, would you?”

She rolled her eyes in response but stood up and approached him anyway. “Alright, nurse MacCready.”

“Shut up.” MacCready replied and tried really hard not to return the stupid grin she shot his way. Tried and failed when she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and called him MacGrumpy.

They made their way into an empty store nearby. No point in getting patched up only to get shot at again, or worse while exposed out in the open. After a quick once over of the building to make sure it really was just the two of them, she hopped up onto a stool and peeled off the top half of her vault suit. MacCready tried his damned best to keep his eyes focused solely on her arm, but hell, if his eyes happened to wander over to her tits once or twice who could really blame him? He wanted to slap himself. Probably would have done him some good.

Instead he did take this opportunity to inspect her wound. The cut didn’t look too deep, but it wasn’t shallow enough to put MacCready’s mind at ease either. Especially since it ran up a large part of her arm and was still oozing blood.

“Not worth a stimpack.” The Boss declared. “Maybe a stitch or two.”

Okay, maybe she was right and it wasn’t quite enough to warrant a stimpack, but one of those sounded a hell of a lot better idea than him playing doctor for real.

He looked up from the wound to find her watching him.

“You’re not gonna make me do it, are you?”

“Well I can’t do it now, can I?” She lifted her injured arm and dropped it at her side again like a dead weight to emphasise the point.

“My sewing is sh– really bad. I’ll probably end up attaching your arm to my sleeve or something.”

“Patch me up, doc.” She slapped him on the shoulder with her good hand. “I trust you. Besides, someone can probably take a better look at it at the settlement later.”

“Doc?” He asked. “A promotion already, huh?”

“Yeah.” The Boss grinned. “Didn’t think you’d look good in a nurse’s outfit anyway.”

“I’d look better in it than you.”

She slapped his arm for real that time.

“Arlight, alright.” He put his hands up in surrender. “Let’s get that thing cleaned up first, oaky?”

MacCready pulled his pack off his back and rummaged around inside it. The thing was pitifully empty of anything of much use other than a hefty supply of various types of ammo and a spare pistol or two. He really had to stop relying on the Boss for all the other important stuff like food, water and chems. A bullet would save your life out here, but it was no good if you let yourself waste away through your own stupidity.

Alcohol would have been ideal, but they were fresh out of that. Why the hell had they thought it had been a good idea to get shitfaced the night before they headed out from Sanctuary? Oh, right, Hancock. That’s why. At least he hadn’t ended up tripping balls on homemade chems though. In any case he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn down a night of rolling around in bed naked with the Boss. Still, he wished they had saved at least one damned bottle now.

By some miracle, one half empty bottle of water he did have. He uncapped a bottle of the purified stuff and began to clean the wound out as best as he could.

She didn’t make a sound and bit her lip instead to mask the pain, but MacCready saw it all the same.

“Just a scratch, huh?”

She rolled her eyes once again. She was always doing that around him. Can’t say that he didn’t give her plenty of reason to.

“Shut up.”

It took a few attempts but finally MacCready succeeded in threading the bastard of a needle and even managed a couple of ugly looking stitches that he prayed wouldn’t leave her arm horribly disfigured for the rest of her life. Although a small amount of blood still seeped through despite his best efforts. A blind super mutant could have done a better job. They both knew that his piss poor stitches wouldn’t hold; they didn’t even fully close the wound now but she didn’t say anything about it. In the end he wrapped it with a makeshift bandage and hoped for the best. The settlement wasn’t too far away anyhow.

With that the Boss re-dressed herself, much to MacCready’s dismay. It was a damn shame not to be able to appreciate her some more, but it would have been an even worse one if that body of hers got ruined by some bullets. The armour was a fair price to pay after all he guessed. She kissed him, briefly, and thanked him for the patch up. He bit his tongue about the shitty job he had done and grabbed his rifle and the two of them headed back out.

*

It was quiet, too quiet, as they walked side by side about a week later on the deserted highway and MacCready said as much more so to get the Boss talking than worrying about what might jump out and try to kill them. She barely responded with nothing more than a grunt of acknowledgement. There was none of her usual laughter that made his stomach flip, and no name calling like ‘dork’ or nerd’, which coming from her was something that made him blush like a damned kid more than anything. He was used to her quiet, brooding moods that cropped up, especially after chasing down leads on Shaun; he could relate to that having been hit with more than his fair share concerning Duncan and Lucy. But this was different. She’d gotten quieter and quieter as time passed by. She zoned out of conversations and MacCready found himself outpacing her too often and having to slow his pace for her to keep up with him. He was always the one following her, never the other way around. 

Her movements had gotten slower and stiffer too. Some mornings the Boss tended to exaggerate the groans as she stretched and pulled herself up from the ground when MacCready brushed the hair out of her face and told her it was time to get up, but this time he could hear the strain in her voice as she winced at the effort to stretch out her limbs. And it didn’t stop there either. She barely ate anything and when she did, she chewed slowly as if every bite took a monumental effort, and he caught her rubbing at her jaw a lot.  But still, she soldiered on.

The road had been mercifully quiet ever since the super mutant attack, with the exception of a small pack of wild mongrels here and a couple of mirelurks there, and normally MacCready would take that as a sign of an oncoming shitstorm, because who the hell goes this long out here without someone or something trying to murder them in full force? He didn’t realise that they had already endured the storm but not the devastation it had left behind in its wake. Not yet anyway.

Her aim was off too. Something MacCready had admired about the Boss since first meeting her was just how quickly she had taken to his lessons in shooting. She’d been shaky but able to hold her own pretty damn well in a fight before she met him but he had seen the improvement over time. She was nowhere as good as he was – and who the hell really was out in the Commonwealth? – but she was a damn fine student that MacCready was proud of. So when she missed the mirelurk that was almost right on them, his fears only grew. After the fight he saw the way her hands shook, and he damn well saw the wince when her arms fell back to her sides.

MacCready usually spent a little more time watching her than their surrounding like he should have been, but now he couldn’t stop glancing her way every two seconds as he watched her movements get slower. She was sweating profusely and it wasn’t even that warm; he was wearing more layers than her and was usually the one to complain about taking a break first with his crappy smoker’s lungs. There was only so long he could keep his damned mouth shut.

“Hey, boss…?”

She didn’t look back at him. “Hmm?”

“You maybe wanna take a break?”

Let her think it was his idea, if it got her to sit down for a few minutes then that was fine with him. She stopped and for a second he thought that she was going to listen to him for once, but then she lifted her arm to check her pipboy – a movement which seemed to cause her a lot of strain as if the thing suddenly weighed a fuck tonne – and shook her head.

“We’re almost at the settlement, we can take a break when we get there. Only a couple more miles.”

MacCready frowned. Clearly they had a very different definition of ‘almost there’. Especially when she looked ready to drop.

“Lemme take a look at your arm.”

“Huh?” She gave him a puzzled look and then turned her gaze to her arm and sighed. “It’s been throbbing for a while now.”

MacCready grit his teeth. How long had she been keeping that quiet while they’d been out here?

“Sit down.”

It wasn’t a question, but she was in no position to argue anyway and instead she complied and slumped down onto a nearby rock. No arguments or whining about his fussing over her. Yeah, something was definitely up.

MacCready leaned his rifle against the rock and crouched down beside her. He was glad now she had opted to tie the top half of her vault suit around her waist and wore a spare t-shirt she had been carrying around. As much as he’d love to, he didn’t think stripping off in the middle of the open road would be a good idea. Plus there was the whole Boss looking like she was dying thing going on right now. He shook his head and rolled up the sleeve of the oversized t-shirt that drowned her. The bandage was stained a dark reddish brown; it looked like his shitty attempt at a couple of stitches didn’t do squat after all. Peeling the makeshift bandages off, he sucked in a sharp breath at the state of the wound. Cleaning it hadn’t done much good from the looks of it either. The wound was a nasty looking red, and had swollen to at least twice the size with a little pus around the edges. He bit his lip as he caught a whiff of the faint smell, like decay, coming from it.

Shit.

He should have taken a better look at that board she had been hit with. He would’ve bet every last cap to his name that the nails that dumbass super mutant had stuck into it were rusted to hell.

Goddamn shit.

He should have cleaned that wound better.

Fucking shit.

He should have paid more attention and learned how to fucking sew better.

MacCready pulled out another bottle of water – their last one he noted – and uncapped it. This time the Boss let out a hiss as he made contact with the wound when cleaning it up again. He was going to chew right through his own lip at this rate, but he kept going until it was as clean as he was going to get it.

Shit, shit, _shit._

“It’s infected, isn’t it?” She was looking at him rather than the wound.

MacCready let out a long breath. “Yeah.”

No use in lying to her about it. He sure as well wouldn’t have wanted anyone bullshitting him on this if it was him.

_Fuck_.

“Guess my tetanus shots are way out of date too, huh?” Her weak chuckle quickly dissolved into coughing.

MacCready didn’t feel much like laughing.

He took another look at her. She didn’t look so good. Her brow was glistening with sweat and her breaths were coming short and quick.

He took another steadying breath. An infection out here could be a death sentence but they had medical supplies. This was fixable.

“I’m out of stimpacks.” MacCready admitted, knowing full well that there was nothing of use for her in his own pack.

She didn’t respond, but slowly began to slide the pack from her shoulders. MacCready figured it was from how shitty she must have been feeling but he couldn’t help but see how unenthusiastic she looked about pulling the thing off. He helped her ease it off when she lifted her injured arm and winced once more.

Once it was off he practically ripped the pack from her hands and started rooting around in it, pulling out all of the useless crap she had collected on their travels. Letting out a frustrated growl at a lack of finding anything amongst all that crap, he ended up tipping the pack up and letting all of the contents fall out onto the ground. Dropping to his knees he pushed everything around in search of her chems.

“Mac…”

He ignored the Boss’ weak plea and kept rummaging through everything over and over again but he wasn’t coming up with anything. MacCready eventually stopped and stared down at the contents of her pack strewn across the ground.

No stimpacks.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

MacCready felt a cold dread deep in the pit of his stomach. There wasn’t a single fucking stimpack left between the two of them.

“Where the fuck are all the stimpacks?” He demanded, looking up at her. “You’re always hoarding crap, how can they all be gone?”

The boss looked away.

Her voice was soft, and weak. “I used the last one on you…”

MacCready stilled. That last fight with the super mutants had been too close of a call. He always stayed back for as much of the fight as he could and picked off the enemies with his rifle, but this time they had been outnumbered. Normally that wasn’t an issue; the two of them faced uneven odds every day, but there had been _so many_ of this bastards this time. The Boss was getting overwhelmed and even with all of his mods, each shot took too many precious seconds to reload. In the end he’d swapped his rifle out for a pistol and joined the fray up close with her, getting off a hell of a lot more shots, but also missing too many of them too. Those fucking super mutants were fast despite their huge bulk.

They were almost done taking out the bastards when one of them got a lucky shot in his side and before he could even recover, another snuck up on him and whacked MacCready from behind with a board. He went down hard, and would’ve had his skull caved in had it not been for the Boss. He would have bled out too despite her taking out the muties if not for that stimpack she jammed into his side with all the care of the super mutant who had hit him in the first place. He would have refused it if he had known it was the last one. She should have kept it for herself and just let him bleed out. But no one really thinks about those things in the middle of a fight when the only thing that matters is getting out alive and making sure that the other guys don’t. And it wasn’t as if she would have let him say no anyway; she would have stuck him with it anyway even if she knew he was a goner.

That still didn’t stop him from blaming himself. She was going to die because of him.

MacCready shook his head. Like hell she was.

He snatched up their gear and got to his feet. She was still standing, still breathing, and he was going to get her help even if it killed him.

“Come on, we’re almost there. We’re getting to that settlement every if I had to drag your sorry a– even if I have to carry you.”

He slung her uninjured shoulder over his and wrapped his arm around her waist. He shouldered his rifle on the other side and hauled her back up on her feet. They set out once more in the direction of the settlement that had them out there in the first place. The going was slow but MacCready refused to stop until they got there. He refused to stop until she was fixed up.

It was when the settlement was finally in sight that she collapsed. MacCready had never been happier to see one of the ramshackle little places in his life. For once all that hard work and risking his own neck for random strangers was actually going to pay off. Well how about that, maybe there was something to the Minutemen after all. Who knew? Not that he would ever admit that out loud to Garvey or any of the others.

All he had to do was get her there. Easy, right? Yeah fucking right. That was when a pack of mole rats decided to pop up out of the ground around them.

The snarling little bastards rushed and jumped at them, but MacCready kept one arm wrapped around the Boss’ waist and the other reached for a pistol. He fired off a few shots, hitting one of them, but narrowly missing the others. With no other choice, unless he wanted the mole rats all over the both of them, he released his grip on her and went for his rifle, easily picking the mole rats off one by one as they each leapt at him in turn.

“Aw, and I was just starting to have fu– ” The smile on MacCready’s lips died when he turned to find her in a heap on the floor.

“Shi– fu–” He rushed towards her and dropped to his knees. “Boss!”

MacCready placed an arm under her and lifted her up gently to get a better look. She was still breathing. Heavily but he’d take it over not at all any day.

“Don’t you dare go dying on me now.” He snarled and slung his rifle over his shoulder so he could haul her up into his arms and carry her to the settlement. “Not now. Not when we’re this close.”

He hauled ass all the way to the settlement, yelling for help and spouting crap about being with the Minutemen. So technically he was by association with the boss, but they didn’t need to know that he couldn’t give a mole rats ass about their too noble for this fucked up world cause. Not since Duncan had he given a damn about anyone but himself, but he was willing to join the fucking Brotherhood of Steel and parading around in a tin can if it meant saving her life.

Some of the settlers came running while others stayed back at a cautious distance. At the mention of the Minutemen and seeing the unconscious woman in his arms, one of the settlers called him over and ushered them into a rundown shack that looked like it would be blown over at the slightest breeze.

The old guy motioned for him to set her down on the stained mattress in the corner and MacCready complied.

“What happened?” He asked, kneeling down to take a look at her.

“Infection. Arm” MacCready got out between breathes; he needed to quit smoking. “You gotta help her. Where are your med supplies?”

His eyes darted around the old shack, searching from where they might have stashed their chems.

The old timer peeled the bandage off and sucked in a breath at the sight of the wound. He looked up at MacCready with a sad look in his eyes. “I’m afraid we’re fresh out. Raider’s cleaned us out just a few days ago. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

MacCready’s legs almost gave out from under him. No stimpacks. No chems. Nothing.

“Nothing…?”

The old geezer looked up at him with so much fucking pity that he wanted to ram the butt of his rifle right into his face. “Caravan’s pass through, but we’re not expecting one for at least a week now. I’m so sorry.”

No. This was bullshit. She didn’t get to die because these assholes couldn’t fend off a few Raiders. She didn’t get to die because of a tiny little cut from a rusty fucking nail. Not after everything they had been through. Not like this.

“You’ve gotta have _something_.” MacCready could hear himself pleading now. Fuck, if the old bastard wanted him to beg then he would fucking beg. “ _Anything_.”

The old timer paused for a moment in thought. “The Raiders. Ones you came out here to take care of. They’re holed up in a hospital nearby. Might be they’re sitting on a supply of chems.”

“Fine.” MacCready turned to leave. “Take care of her while I’m gone.”

“Wait.” The old guy called out after him. “You can’t go alone.”

He looked back at the old timer, and then his gaze fell back to the Boss lying there on the mattress. Pale skin, flushed and breathing hard. He saw that ugly wound on her arm, draining the life out of her.

“I don’t go, she’s as good as dead.”

“One of us could–”

“No.” MacCready cut him off. These people weren’t fighters. They wouldn’t be out in this settlement tending crops if they were. Everyone carried a weapon of some kind these days, but that didn’t mean any of them knew how to use them. These people didn’t look like they could handle themselves in a fight. Why else would they have sent for help from the Minutemen? They would just slow MacCready down, or worse yet get themselves or him killed. He didn’t have time to babysit any of them right now. She didn’t have that time. “I work better alone.”

There was only one person in this godforsaken world he would trust to have at his back on this, and she was lying on that mattress fighting for her life. She had done him the biggest solid he could ever ask for and now it was his turn to return the favour.

As if she heard his stupid ass decision, the Boss stirred and her eyes fluttered open. MacCready stilled, not wanting to leave her. The old geezer looked between them and then shuffled out of the shack without a word.

MacCready knelt down beside her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She croaked. “I pass out?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

MacCready hated seeing her like this. It was so weird to see her so weak, and helpless like that. So wrong.

“Guess I really am a knockout, huh?”

MacCready couldn’t help but grin, just a little. Damn her and her ability to make him laugh when he was far from in the mood. It made arguments with her so damn unfair.

“Call ‘em like I see ‘em, beautiful.”

Her face was already flushed from the fever, but he liked to think he had a tiny part in that right then.

She chuckled weakly. “If gross and sweaty is your thing.”

Even now as she laid there with a hideous wound scarring her arm and sticky with sweat MacCready found her beautiful. He didn’t think there was anything she could do to change that. Even if she turned into a ghoul or something. Shit, when had he gotten in this deep?

“Isn’t everyone out here?” He shrugged and wiped her brow with a rag.

The Boss tried to sit up, but he gently pushed her back down, being careful not to touch her injured arm. Even if he hadn’t MacCready knew she wouldn’t get very far from the way her face screwed up just trying to lift her head.

“Stay down. Just take it easy and rest up, okay? I’ll take care of things from here.”

He wondered if she at least found his bullshit reassuring, because he sure as hell didn’t.

“The Raiders. Can’t go alone.” She winced when she shifted.  “Shit, so fucking stupid.”

Goddamit she was still thinking of these fucking people even as she laid there dying. How in the hell did she keep so much good in her after everything she had been through? He really hated that about her sometimes. And yet it was also what he loved about her.

“Easy. Sh– stuff happens.” MacCready brushed away the hair that had stuck to her face. “It’s no big deal. They got chems. You’ll be fixed up and on your feet again in no time. Just rest. Then we can go crush some Raider skulls, just like old times.”

She was going to kick his ass when she found out, but MacCready didn’t give a shit. She would thank him later. Much later after she in turn patched his ass up for lying to her.

“Okay.” She murmured, her eyes slipping shut. She was out of it in seconds.

MacCready leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead. There was no way in hell that she was going to die today. No fucking way.

“Don’t you go dying on me.” He muttered. “Not you too.”

Those Raiders didn’t know what the fuck kind of shitstorm was coming their way.

MacCready rose from her side and swept out of the little shack. He stopped and stared the old timer in the eye. “Stay here, with her. I’m gonna need all of you to make sure nothing happens to her. You hear me?”

The old man nodded.

“Just…” MacCready gave the shack one last, lingering look. “Keep her safe.”

Keep her _alive_.

He tore his gaze away and ran out of the settlement without looking back.

*

MacCready was no stranger to going at it alone. He’d done it after leaving the Capital Wasteland and Duncan in search of the cure, and he’d done it again it after ditching the Gunners. He could do this. She had done shit like this all by herself before picking up him and the rest of the strays that followed her around. So could he.

The hospital was just a few miles trek from the settlement. MacCready spotted the tell-tale signs of Raiders right off the bat. Hanging bodies from trees was pretty much the Raider equivalent of a welcome mat, but then Raiders had never been ones for subtlety. He also noticed the burned out fires but not a single soul out on patrol. Maybe these guys were just plain stupid. That worked for him. Still, something about this didn’t sit right with MacCready.

Lifting his head from behind a broken wall for a better look, he quickly ducked it again when a turret fired up and let lose a stream of bullets in his direction. Okay, so they weren’t complete morons after all, but even Raiders didn’t leave the perimeter completely unmanned, turrets or not. Hell even fucking super mutants had the sense to post guards outside.

MacCready crept along to the other end of the low wall and whipped his rifle around the corner, letting off a succession of shots and taking out the turret before it could lock onto his new position. The thing exploded into a shower of metal and sparks and he ducked back behind the wall, counting to ten. He snuck another look out from behind the wall but nothing had stirred. Were these assholes deaf as well as stupid? There was no way in hell they hadn’t heard that. But he didn’t have time to sit around on his ass and play it safe; the Boss was running out of time.

With no sign of life and no bullets heading in his direction, MacCready vaulted the wall and made a straight run for the door. It swung open with ease; no locks, chains or tripwires. After a quick scan just inside he saw no further signs of traps or sentries. Just what in the fuck was going on in this place?

He moved deeper into the building, moving slowly and cautiously. As much as he would have loved to have just gone in guns blazing, he couldn’t take the risk. She was counting on him to come back out of this alive with lifesaving chems. And he sure as hell wasn’t any good to his son dead either. They were both counting on him. He couldn’t fuck this up. No matter who or what was waiting for him in there.

The hospital was too damn quiet and he wasn’t laughing about it anymore. Someone should have taken a shot at him by now. A Raider should have charged out swinging for his head with a bat or tire iron already. Fuck, he should be narrowly avoiding grenades or molotovs right about now. He never thought in all his life he would be gladly welcoming some Raiders trying to kill him.

This was too fucking easy.

And then he finally came across some of those Raiders everyone had been yapping about. Only these guys were already corpses littering the ground. MacCready didn’t even need to kneel down and check the bodies to get some kind of idea of what could have killed them. Although it was a little hard to tell just how many of the poor bastards there originally had been in this band. Limbs were strewn about. Trails of blood were smeared across the floor where some had been dragged. These guys had been torn to shreds. It still left a couple of possibilities but there was one thing that was beyond a doubt: the bastards responsible for this hadn’t been human.

It was time to get the chems and get the fuck out of here.

MacCready took a step but froze in his tracks when he heard a low, guttural groan. That same sound that snuck into his dreams and twisted them into hellish nightmares. The same sound that still haunted his waking hours on an almost daily basis because no matter how hard he tried to take out as many as he could, the fuckers would forever roam the earth like a goddamn plague.

Ferals.

His finger flicked the safety off – honestly he didn’t know why he ever bothered to put it back on sometimes – and a sharp hiss sounded to his left.

Give him anything, anything at all. Super mutants, Raiders, Gunners. Hell he’d even take on a fucking deathclaw. Okay maybe not, but you got the picture. Just give him anything but a pack of fucking ferals. Because face it MacCready, he told himself, the bastards never travelled alone.

Raising his gun and twisting to the side MacCready fired a shot, right between the eyes of the feral that had rose from the ground nearby and lunged at him. That first shot, echoing throughout the dilapidated building set off a chain reaction. More groans, and hisses issued from every direction and MacCready was answering in turn with bullets

He was running from that point. Running from the ferals that chased him throughout the hospital. Running towards the chems that would save the Boss’ life. And along the way he was taking out every last fucking feral that got between him and her. Those bastards may have taken Lucy from him, but they didn’t stop him from saving Duncan and they sure as hell wouldn’t stop him from saving her either. No fucking way. They weren’t ruining his life. Not anymore.

MacCready didn’t even realise he was screaming. Louder than the hissing ghouls, and louder than the pop of the bullets from his gun that went straight into their heads. His throat would later sting and his legs would later feel the burn of all that running and jumping out of the way of those flailing arms and snapping teeth, but MacCready was pumped up full of adrenaline and using every ounce of it to take those fuckers out.

He found himself backed into an examination room, chased there by the last remaining ferals that he hadn’t killed yet. But he would, and he did as he let off those last few shots into all of them, emptying the clip. The room fell silent but there was still a ringing in his ears, and after a few moments he vaguely became aware of his own heavy breathing.

There was no time to rest. As much as he wanted to just collapse onto that table and not move for a week, he still needed to find those chems. He wasn’t done yet. MacCready wheezed but forced himself to take another step, and another in search of those chems. Fuck, he _really_ needed to quit smoking, but shit, what he wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now. Instead he started yanking cupboards and drawers open and rummaging around in them.

And then he saw them.

Sitting in a glass cabinet behind locked doors. Stimpacks. Blood bags. Everything he wanted. Everything she needed. Right there in front of him for the taking.

He took one step towards the cabinet. All he saw was those chems. He was so close. She was going to make it. Oh thank fuck, she was going to be alright.

A shaky hand reached out towards the cabinet.

MacCready was thrown to the side and knocked down to the floor, and on top of him, trying to claw and bite at his face was another fucking feral. And this bastard was glowing, lighting up the whole damn room.

He was an idiot for not hearing it creep up on him. Ferals had never been stealthy hunters. And he was an even bigger idiot for not seeing the damn thing. It couldn’t have been more visible if it had been wearing a neon fucking sign. Fuck, it _was_ a goddamn neon sign. But he had only had eyes for those fucking chems.

His rifle had been knocked from his other hand and flung across the floor, just out of his goddamn reach. His fingers stretched out for it while he held the feral off with the other hand, but it was no damn use. Shit, he was such a fucking idiot. He was going to die in this godforsaken place under a goddamned ghoul because he had let his guard down right at the last fucking second. And she was going to die because of it. Because of him.

He would never see her again. He would never see Duncan again. Goddammit he had failed Lucy and now he was going to fail them too. After everything they had been through. After getting so far, only to fuck up right at the end.

Maybe he deserved this. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. It had always been ferals. It only seemed fitting that one would take him out in the end. Although in all honesty he had always thought that he would meet his end from a bullet after letting his stupid damn mouth get him in trouble again. But this? This was probably what he deserved.

But it wasn’t what she deserved.

No, she wasn’t done yet. She still had so much left to do. She had a son to find and save. She had settlements to liberate and people to look out for. She didn’t get to die because of him. And if that meant that he had to live, then so be it. He wasn’t about to give up on her. Not when she hadn’t given up on him.

With a roar to rival a deathclaw’s, he gave the glowing bastard a hard shove and started to scramble across the floor away from it. The glowing one grabbed his legs before he could get far, but that brief moment of reprise was all MacCready needed, and he slammed the hunting knife he had strapped to his leg right into the fucker’s skull. Once, twice, and what felt like twenty more times until it was a bloody, glowing mess.

This time he took that moment to just lay there and catch his breath. Anything else could have snuck up on him then, but every ounce of energy had left him and his body felt like it was weighed down by power armour. Eventually he shoved the dead feral off and dragged his ass back up. Grabbing his rifle, MacCready used it to shoot the lock off the cabinet and then scooped up all of its contents into his pack.

He needed that cigarette now more than ever, or better yet a stiff drink so he could drink himself into oblivion and sleep this whole fucking train wreck of a situation off. But that could wait.

Getting out of the hospital was actually slower than MacCready’s mad rush with his gun blazing going in. He was ready to drop, and the damned ferals had helped with that. The bruises were already forming and he was pretty sure he had fucked his leg up real good from the way he was limping now. Each step he took sent a shooting pain through his ankle, but each step brought him closer to the Boss. It was a fair trade.

Maybe he was being shown a little mercy because nothing tried to kill him on the trek back, or maybe it was just down to him killing everything on sight on the way there. Either way MacCready wasn’t about to question it, and more importantly he wasn’t going to jinx it or whatever since he probably wouldn’t have survived whatever the Commonwealth had to throw at him next. A single mole rat could have popped out and finished him off, the state he was in.

*

When he made it back to the settlement MacCready yanked his pack off and held it out in lieu of a greeting.

“Whichever one of you is the closest thing to a doctor better get your ass in there pronto and fix her up.”

One of the settlers stepped forward and MacCready shoved his pack into their arms. They didn’t argue and just ran straight for the shack. He started to limp after them, but a hand reached out and gripped his arm, holding him back. He would have taken a swing if he could have lifted his arm.

“Take a seat and let’s have a look at you, son.” The old timer from before led him to an old patio chair by a fire pit.

MacCready allowed himself to be guided down to the chair that creaked under his weight. He couldn’t have taken the old geezer in a fight the way he felt. Though why he would be fighting an old guy was beyond him. Shit, he hoped he wasn’t running a fever from a goddamn infection now too. This was just going to get too repetitive.

“You really care about her a lot, don’t you?” The old man asked.

MacCready could feel him checking out his leg and fought the urge to make a comment about being paid upfront for the groping.

“Nah.” He muttered. “I do that for every as– person I just happen to come across. Real bleeding heart hero me.”

His head slumped forward and the brim of his hat shielded the old guy from view. He could just close his eyes for a second while the old geezer checked him out.

“She’s very lucky to have you looking out for her.”

MacCready shook his head. “I’m the lucky one.”

That was the understatement of the goddamn century. He would probably be lying in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in the back of his head, courtesy of Winlock and Barnes, if not for her.

He felt the jab of a stimpack in his leg and MacCready jerked forward, almost toppling out of the chair and onto the old bastard. And it definitely wasn’t due to the rejuvenating qualities of the stimpack.

“What the fu – what are you doing?” He demanded with clenched fists, ready to actually fight the old bastard now. “Those are for _her_.”

“Unless you want to overdose her, I think she can spare one for you.” The old man chuckled without batting an eyelid. “You snatched up a good haul in that hospital. I think the two of you will be set for a little while now.”

MacCready snorted. A couple of days tops with their lifestyle maybe. There was always someone out there who wanted to take a shot at the two of them.

The old guy patted him on the leg and got to his feet. “I’d say the prognosis is good. You’ll live son.”

Forget him. How the hell was the Boss doing?

“Go check on her. I’m sure they’ve finished up in there by now.”

It was like the old guy was some kind of a mind reader. Were all old people spooky chem using seers or just the ones he had the misfortune of meeting? Or maybe he was just that obvious; a goddamn puppy like Dogmeat who followed his master around with his tail wagging.

*

She was still out of it when he returned to the little shack, but this time her breathing had evened out and didn’t sound so ragged anymore. Holy shit he had actually done it. There she was still living and breathing, because of him. Not that he cared how she got better, just that he did. Shit, he would have kissed Danse if it was the only cure on the planet for her. Still, thank fuck it wasn’t though. Goddamn he really needed to sleep.

MacCready pulled his hat off and let it fall to the ground. He dropped to his knees and crawled onto the ground next to the mattress she laid on. What he wouldn’t give for enough space on the thing to pull her into his arms and inhale the scent of her hair as he drifted off. Probably for the better, really. He didn’t want to crowd her as she tried to get her fever down. That would be just fucking swell. Sorry guys, I accidentally killed the boss with my body heat while she was running a fever.

Instead he made do. This was good. He could lay there in the dirt beside her with her hand in his. This worked.

*

The loss of contact woke him up. MacCready had always been a light sleeper; he needed to be living out in the wasteland. Even within the confines of Little Lamplight he and the other kids had had to keep a constant watch against bastards who tried to break in, and the super mutants who lived deeper in the connecting caves. Thinking back on it setting up shop next to neighbours like that, it was a wonder any of them lived long enough to see sixteen. But he would never let anything sneak up on him ever again. Not after that night in the metro station. 

His fist clenched and when he felt empty air, and MacCready stirred and cracked his eyes open. Fuck, his body ached like a bitch and he really didn’t feel like testing out just how much damage those fucking ferals had done by moving a single inch. But when he saw those familiar blue eyes that he had grown to memorise staring back at him, he jerked up and winced at the sudden soreness that seeped back into his body.

“Hey…” She murmured, a sleepy smile creeping onto her face.

MacCready sat there dumbfounded, just staring at her. She was awake, and talking. Holy shit she was _alive_. By some fucking miracle he hadn’t fucked this up.

She watched him, still lying on the mattress but that smile faded from her lips when he continued to just sit there and stare at her as if he had just been whacked across the head by another board courtesy of a super mutant.

MacCready didn’t give her a chance to open her mouth. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around her. Fuck, he could feel her. Solid and real, right there in his arms. He could smell her and shit, she was no bed of roses but it was her scent underneath that sweat and grime and she was _real_.

“Don’t you ever fucking _dare_ do that to me again, Erin.”

He pulled her tighter to him, not caring if he squeezed the life out of her, even though he probably really should after everything.

“You gotta put a dollar in the swear jar.” Erin murmured. Her voice was quiet, and slurred in his ear.

MacCready wanted to shake some sense into her and kiss her at the same time. He was just going to chalk that one up to the fever and chems. He pulled away, still keeping her in his arms, so he could take a look at her.

“I mean it.” He sighed and let his forehead rest against hers. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

She was quiet for a moment, and he felt her arms snake around him, before finally asking in a soft voice. “Was it bad?”

“…yeah.” MacCready was never one to sugar-coat it with people, except when it came to kids but that was because he wasn’t a goddamn asshole so it didn’t count. Another one of the many things he loved about Erin: she didn’t put up with bullshit. It was pretty damn refreshing not having to worry about what kind of angle she might have been working with him. She spoke her mind and gave no shits about coddling people.

He cleared his throat. “Lucky you have me around to save your as– look out for you.”

She pushed him back and he froze when he saw that look on her face she reserved for things she was about to kill. Now that scared him more than any feral could.  

“Just rest, huh?”

MacCready blinked and his jaw hung open. He probably looked like a jackass right then. He sure as hell felt like one. Only she could make him feel guilty for saving her damned life.

“Uhh…”

“What happened to _we’ll_ go crush some Raider skulls?”

“Well, technically all the Raider skulls were already crushed when I got there…”

“Dammit Rob.” She whacked him on the shoulder. Her strength might not have returned but MacCready was still aching all over from the ferals and he sure as hell felt that.

“You were dying!” He snapped.

Did she really expect him to leave her there to die while he sat around on his ass?

“And you could have too!” Erin bit back. “Where the hell would Duncan be without you then?”

MacCready stared at her and yet she was the one who looked like she’d just been sucker punched.

“Rob, I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

“Shut up.” He pulled her close once again and held her tight. “I knew what I was risking, and yeah I thought about him too. But you’re an idiot if you think I don’t care about you even half as much.”

He had thought about Duncan, and Lucy too when he stepped into that hospital alone while knowing the very real possibility that he might not have walked back out again. MacCready knew just how much he was risking by going in there. If anything happened to him then Duncan would be an orphan and that was never something he could ever let happen. And worse still, if he had gotten himself killed doing something stupid just a few months ago, then his son would have joined him not long after. He had always been careful. Some people saw it as selfishness, and it wasn’t as if MacCready didn’t want to save his own skin. To hell with other people anyway. No one looked out for him and he didn’t give a rat’s ass, but he had to look out for Duncan.

But now he had someone else he had to look out for. MacCready sure as hell never planned for this, but then nothing had ever gone the way he had wanted anyway. He had never seen himself ever caring about anyone other than Duncan, and now he couldn’t see himself ever being without her by his side.

Erin didn’t say anything but he felt her fingers clutch at his duster and her face press against his skin as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

MacCready ran his fingers through her tangled red hair. “I told you it would be a cold day in hell before I ever let anything bad happen to you.”

“Well, it was about time that you were the one saving my ass for once.” She chuckled but MacCready heard the faint sniff. Or maybe his ears were just playing tricks on him. Yeah, that was more than likely.

“Are we forgetting the Mirelurks I kept off your back the other week?” He asked. “And who was it that got the final kill shot on that deathclaw the week before that?”

“Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” She replied with an exasperated sigh. “But it was _me_ who weakened the deathclaw for you to finish off.”

MacCready scoffed.

“Keeping score are we now, Mac?” She asked, poking him gently in the ribs. “If I’d have known, I would’ve asked Piper to supply some paper so I could make a list.”

Okay sure, she saved his ass on maybe what you might consider a regular basis, but she was a dirty liar if she ever claimed that he didn’t do the same in exchange.

“We’re both amazing at keeping each other’s dumb as–  keeping each other alive, okay?” MacCready conceded. “Let’s just agree to keep that necessity to a bare minimum.”

“Deal.”

They both knew that was a promise that neither of them could keep. The second they stepped out of that settlement all bets were off and something out there was going to try to kill them. Hell, they probably didn’t even need to leave the settlement for that to happen.

But that didn’t mean that next time they couldn’t be prepared.

“The first caravan or settlement we find, I’m buying all of the da– stimpacks.” He declared. “Every. Last. One.”

“Wow, Robert Joseph MacCready–”

MacCready grimaced. She really made him regret telling her his full name sometimes, especially when she only ever used it to tease him.

“–spending all of his precious caps on me? It must be love.”

This time he felt himself flush. Only she could make him go from irritated to fucking embarrassed and flustered as shit in a single sentence. He hated the power she had over him, but he also loved it too. And her.

“Worth every da– every cap.”

It was her turn to turn a matching shade of red at that.

He pressed his forehead against hers, just as he found himself always doing after making it through an impossible situation where it looked like that this time they might not make it out alive. It wasn’t enough to just see her still standing after a fight; he needed to touch her, to feel her in his arms so he knew that she was still there with him. Still alive.  She was still too warm and MacCready could feel the sweat on her brow, but it sure as hell beat her feeling cold and lifeless.

MacCready traced his finger along the scar that ran from her cheek and through her lip. She was the one with the fever and he felt like he was hallucinating. But she was there, she was real. Duncan hadn’t been taken from him and neither had she.

He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. Erin’s lips were dry and chapped, no doubt from dehydration and sweating out every last ounce of water in her, but it was still the best thing MacCready had tasted in ages. Something that he could never get enough of, and planned to keep in steady supply to satisfy that need she had ignited in him.

And he sure as hell planned to keep it that way for a long time to come.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me over on [tumblr](http://davecabbage.tumblr.com/)  too.
> 
> And [here](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CY3qTTyWwAIoUss.jpg:large) is an image reference for Erin for anyone interested.


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